A food blog. Kinda.

INTERVIEW: Mikey Rodriguez, Instagram Pizza Prince

NOSHKONG recently had a chance to sit with Mikey Rodriguez, creator of the widely popular IG account @obsauced, which chronicles his adventures around NYC and the surrounding metropolitan are as he plows through one slice of pizza after another. Mikey doesn’t just indulge, though. He makes his own pizza, as well, and is a Goddamn galaxy of information about the world’s greatest comfort food.

Follow Mikey and @obsauced on Instagram and read our interview with him below!

NK: So, Mikey Rodriguez?

MR: Mikey Rodriguez

NK: What is that? Puerto Rican?

MR: Yeah

NK: Are you still in touch with your Puerto Rican roots?

MR: Haha, no, not at all. I’m what you call a NuYorican. I’m like 5th generation. Even my grandmother doesn’t speak Spanish. I can speak French, I can speak Italian, little bit of Afrikaans because of my wife, but not Spanish.

MR: Pizza in general, maybe it was about 5, 6 years ago–once I started working at Paulie Gee’s. I needed that platform. Like, if I’m gonna work at a pizzeria, I should post my creations. And with Paulie, he gave me, like, this whole spectrum of “Everything is allowed, except for pepperoni and pineapple.” He had prohibited “P’s”. No pesto, no fish–which he spelled as “PH”

NK: Yeah, the band Phish. I wouldn’t suggest putting that on pizza.

MR: Yeah, I just think he hated that whole (pizza) culture to begin with.

NK: He hated pepperoni, though?

MR: So–

NK: What about pancetta?

(pause)

NK: What about…prosciutto?

MR: Those are all great questions!

NK: The pineapple thing I get, and we’ll get to that. You’re gonna settle this once and for all today. But forbidding something like pepperoni–

MR: He would use soppressata, so it’s kinda like a spicy salami, which is close to pepperoni, but it’s higher quality. Y’know, he has this pizza called a Hellboy–and he’ll have a shit ton of soppressata. Whatever will cover a pie is what we’ll put on a pie. He’ll do the soppressata, he’ll do hot honey–

NK: Which is what his trademark is now.

MR: Yeah

NK: No one else in the city is really doing that, right? If they are, they took it from him.

MR: Yeah, but if you talk to him, he’ll say he took it from Roberta’s because they have a pizza called the Bee Sting. But I think it’s just regular honey, I don’t think it’s hot honey.

NK: Roberta’s is pretty good. So we’re talkin’ a lot about pizza because that is your thing. We’ve spent the entire afternoon talking about pizzas. Tell my audience, where was the first pizza made?

MR: The first pizza was made in Naples and it’s from a place called Brandi–

MR: Haha yeah! Then Queen Margherita came by, there were these guys making pizza as a street food, and they would just throw random toppings on there, like tomatoes, little bits of pecorino, so if you get the marinara (pizza), the marinara is the true form, it’s not the margherita. But–they made a margherita for the queen, so they did basil for green, red for the sauce, and white for the mozzarella

NK: The colors of the Italian flag!

MR: Yeah, basically, yeah.

NK: Now, at the rate that we’re going, the Apocalypse is kinda comin up. So…where will the last pizza be made?

MR: Haha, aw man, y’know–

NK: The Final Pizza!

MR: It’s hard because I would think that the final pizza will probably be a chain pizzeria, like Domino’s. Y’know, because if a bomb explodes right now, and it disintegrates everything, I think Domino’s would still stand!

NK: Yeah, because their food isn’t real. It could withstand a nuclear war.

MR: Exactly.

NK: I agree. There’s something that Domino’s is doing to their food that shouldn’t be put in our bodies, but before we resort to eating each other, Domino’s might be a pretty decent option.

MR: Haha maybe! I’d probably eat a human before I eat Domino’s.

NK: That’s fair. I might eat a few humans before I eat Domino’s.

MR: It’s the cheese. The cheese is what puts me off. It doesn’t melt properly.

NK: I don’t think it’s cheese.

MR: It’s what they call “Real Cheese”, and whenever I see Real Cheese, I think of, like, something chemically made. I don’t think of cows being milked at a farm.

So now you love pizza so much. I have to ask, and if this uncomfortable, you can pass, but if you could have sex with pizza, would you wear a condom?

MR: Haha–I won’t, but then I’ll be afraid of yeast infections!

NK: Haha oh! Ya gotta be safe out there! Safe sex.

Now when you fold a pizza slice, which is a very New York way of doing it by the way, is it now technically a calzone?

MR: I would say more of a sandwich than anything, but also, you have people that do like a half fold, you will have people do a full fold, like I do. So a full fold, I like to protect the insides of my pizza. Lately, at Julianna’s, I see people do a reverse fold.

NK: Ok that’s fucked up. Those people need to be hurt.

MR: Haha, yes. Like a reverse fold, they wanna get the cheese and the sauce, and they don’t wanna have all that bread.

NK: Ok what you’re telling me is people are folding it the other way, so that when they hold it, the cheese and the sauce are on the outside.

MR: Yeah, it gets very messy dude.

NK: The laws of physics kinda dictate that to be almost impossible. (Editor’s note: We are 100% unqualified to make any statements on the laws of physics. We had to Google how to spell physics correctly, in fact.)

MR: It depends. If the slice is cold, y’know, like a dollar slice. I think that if you have a dollar slice hanging, the cheese will fall off. Even when it’s hot, it will fall off.

NK: Because that is not pizza, either. It’s indiscriminate ingredients, slathered on to a frozen cracker, and then sold back to college kids.

MR: I’d probably have dollar pizza before I have Domino’s. There’s a limit, though. I won’t go to 2 Bros.

NK: They make a shitty dollar slice.

MR: I’ll go to Percy’s. It’s on Bleeker, dude, I think that’s the closest you’ll get to real pizza for dollar pizza.

NK: So now speaking of Domino’s, if you found yourself needing to puke your guts up in a bathroom, which bathroom would you rather be puking in: Domino’s, CiCi’s, or Pizza Hut?

MR: Hahaha, Domino’s gets a lot of flack! Hmm…CiCi’s…unlimited pizza?

NK: It’s like you can reboot. You can puke your guts up in the CiCi’s bathroom and then go back for more.

MR: It’s also like a growing national chain. I haven’t seen as many Little Caesar’s as I have Domino’s these days. I remember Little Caesar’s popped up all over the place and now they’re all closing down.

NK: It was like chlamydia–everywhere you turned there was Little Caesar’s.

MR: Hehe, I guess.

NK: I went with chlamydia because of all the STD’s, it seems to be the soft STD.

MR: Ok…

NK: So anyway, you make your own pizza, which we’ve established already. Would you ever make a pizza for Vladimir Putin? And if so, would you poison it?

MR: Haha, I would definitely poison it. I would definitely make it for him, even if he didn’t ask nicely, I’ll make it for him, and still poison it

NK: Ok, that’s good. Like a true patriot.

MR: I just fuckin’ hate Trump. And like, I wanna keep politics out of this, but he gave us Trump, no doubt about it–

NK: So this is like a spite poisoning, not a pleasant poisoning. In this instance, here’s your opportunity to really show Trump that he screwed up.

MR: Yeah

NK: You’re very active on Instagram. You post pics of all the pizza you eat, probably on a daily basis. Do you have any tips for getting over the constipation that might come with that?

MR: Hahaha, um, I’m pretty sure at this point I’m lactose intolerant.

NK: You picked a hell of a hobby then…

MR: See like, if I have about 4 slices of pizza, that pizza runs through me. There was a point where I had Emmett’s. Don’t get me wrong, I love Emmett’s, it’s a great Chicago pizza joint, but right after, dude, I almost shat my pants! That’s because they put so much fuckin cheese on that pizza.

NK: So your cure for constipation is to be lactose intolerant.

MR: Well, I’m not diagnosed with lactose intolerance. I’m just saying I might be ‘cuz I almost shit my pants every time I eat pizza. I guess that’s why I’m like, 200 pounds and not 400.

NK: Hehe, just sneak some vegetables on those pies, my friend. Get some broccoli on there.

MR: The only vegetable that belongs on there is tomato. Well, tomatoes are fruit. Never mind.

NK: Exactly.

MR: Basil! There ya go.

NK: That’s a vegetable! (Editor’s note: basil is a herb.) What about spinach?

MR: No.

NK: Ok. So pictures of pizza on Instagram seem like a perfect marriage. It’s workin’ out for you. Do you think someday that marriage will be legalized?

MR: It won’t be legalized with me, because I love my wife too much.

NK: I’m not asking you to cheat, it’s just for the greater good. If we start limiting the rights of pizza marriage, what’s next?

MR: My wife is closer to being a mistress to pizza than pizza is being a mistress to my wife.

NK: So your first love is pizza, and you’re cheating on pizza with your wife.

MR: Basically.

NK: A lot of people have a problem with the pineapple on the pizza.

MR: I’m one of them.

NK: But what do you think about putting pizza, on top of a pineapple slice? Kinda like a reverse engineered dish. You hold a giant pineapple ring, and it’s got some pizza on it–now what? Now what’ve we done?

MR: Y’know what…

NK: (laughs)

MR: I’m gonna get a slice of pineapple, and post it on Instagram soon, put a little bit of sauce and cheese on it.

MR: Frozen pizza is like, that little brother or sister you just want to love, but you just hate their guts.

NK: Hahaha!

MR: That’s how frozen pizza is, and if it comes to the world only having frozen pizza, I’ll have a Tombstone.

NK: You don’t hear much from them as much as we used to.

MR: Right, gotta go for the underdogs, man.

NK: Those Tombstone commercials were everywhere. Now all I see are pizza rolls and DiGiorno commercials, and it’s sad.

MR: It’s very sad because if you’re gonna buy DiGiorno’s just buy Domino’s. They’re the same.

NK: Do you think porn raised the expectations of becoming a pizza delivery guy?

MR: Hahaha, oh yeah.

NK: I think a lot of young men out there became pizza delivery guys thinking that it’d be blowjobs every hour.

MR: It’s funny because when I first started workin’ at Paulie’s I asked if I could be a delivery boy. And he was like, “We don’t do delivery.” I was like, “That fuckin’ sucks”. It’s like this whole opportunity right here, to hang out in Greenpoint, and bang as many women as possible.

NK: But that could be a danger of society. You woulda been wasting your time! You bought into Big Porn and their message. So you kinda saved yourself from a lot of anguish.